Generating Scenarios

The survey data fed a one-day, online workshop, which convened 20 respondents (who had indicated interest and availability) to sketch plausible scenarios of the nuclear dangers the United States could face in 2043. To structure this exercise in imagination, I used the so-called “deductive method” of scenario planning, in which opposing values of two driving forces are combined to generate four possible futures, which can be represented in a two-by-two matrix.

Focusing on only two driving forces of change can seem reductive given the wealth of factors that will influence the future operating environment, and focusing on four particular scenarios can seem limited given that events could transpire in many other ways. However, scenarios are not meant to be exhaustive or mutually exclusive, nor are they meant to be predictive. The goal was to produce narratives of 2043 that stretch the nuclear community’s conception of what is possible—to shrink the list of things we have not thought of, challenge our expectations of the future, and jostle our mental models.

The first task was therefore to identify which driving forces of change would generate scenarios that best served these goals. Workshop participants did this first through individual brainstorming and then in team discussions. Combining suggestions from these discussions with data from the survey, I chose to explore scenarios whose contours were defined by the degree of U.S. domestic political polarization and the degree of international cooperation to combat climate change, yielding the following matrix:

The 20 participants were divided into four teams of five people. Each team was assigned a quadrant and instructed to describe a future world that operated according to a consistent logic and to craft a narrative of how we got from now to then. An external facilitator coordinated each team’s discussion, prompting members to consider the nuclear ramifications of the world they envisioned, and the day concluded with each team outlining its scenario for the full group. Time constraints limited the detail each team was able to provide. So, drawing on the workshop’s final discussion, as well as notes taken by both participants and facilitators, I extrapolated from and elaborated on each summary to create more detailed narratives, which participants then had the chance to review, correct, and comment on. (For detailed scenarios, see Appendix.)

Five key themes emerged from the scenarios:

1. The United States is struggling to address the tri-polarity presented by China’s nuclear expansion and the possible emergence of another nuclear-peer competitor. According to Admiral Charles Richard, U.S. Strategic Command is “furiously” rewriting deterrence theory to account for the “active stabilization” that the “three-body problem” represents.¹ Putting aside the debatable suggestion that bipolarity was intrinsically stable, this struggle raises the question of how the United States would manage additional nuclear antagonists capable of striking the United States, or a world in which additional nuclear dyads generate more paths to nuclear employment, or a world in which new nuclear states place U.S. friends and allies at greater risk.
2. For all its novelty, the “new nuclear age” will remain rife with old dangers. Conflict could erupt in a “predictable” way—it’s hardly novel to point out that the tensions between India and Pakistan constitute a dangerous flashpoint, as one scenario did—so American policymakers must continue to attend to traditional concerns even as they push themselves to imagine problems that they may not have considered. The future will surprise, but the most dangerous developments may be those already on our radar.
3. Nuclear experts must pay attention to developments outside their field, including other existential risks, such as climate change and its impact on a range of nontraditional security issues like resource scarcity and migration. The things that could most impact nuclear security may, on their face, have little to do with nuclear security. The operating environment is a complex system, and a more holistic view could provide a more accurate understanding of dangers and opportunities.
4. The Biden administration is supporting nuclear energy to reduce carbon emissions and achieve a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. However, the U.S. ability to take advantage of the global nuclear energy market significantly lags that of Russia and China. As other nations turn to nuclear energy to slow or offset the effects of climate change, the United States risks losing not only geopolitical influence, but also the ability to set or influence proliferation safeguards.
5. Domestic political dysfunction could severely limit Washington’s ability to adapt to the new nuclear age. Worse, it is extremely difficult to imagine how we might reverse or even work within the current level of rancor. Not only did survey respondents list polarization as a top factor influencing future nuclear dangers, but workshop participants struggled to envision plausible paths to a future of greater political comity.